Wednesday, October 26, 2011

Tower block opts for fire sprinklers

A tower block has been retro-fitted with a fire sprinkler system – the first of its kind in Wales.
Fairview Court, in Pontypool, is the first high rise owned by registered social landlord Bron Afon Community Housing to benefit from the safety measure.
The building is a 12-storey high block with 70 flats. Implementation of the system cost £95,000 and sprinklers are only activated at a temperature of 68 degrees celcius.
Dave Sharman, Bron Afon community housing’s director of property, said: “We looked carefully at the lessons learnt from fires in high rise blocks and have worked closely with South Wales Fire and Rescue Service.

“Only the sprinkler nearest to the fire will be activated and usually within one minute or less. As well as putting out the fire, the sprinklers greatly reduce the particles contained in smoke so reduce the risk of injury from smoke inhalation.”

Friday, October 21, 2011

Hundreds evacuated after chemical plant fire

Up to 1,000 people had to be evacuated from parts of south Dallas after a fire at a chemical plant – sending plumes of black smoke into the air.
The blaze at Magnablend chemical plant in Waxahatchie, happened on 3 October, 2011 at just before 10:45am. The fire was under control by 3:30pm but the fire department did not leave the scene until Friday 7 October at 5:20pm.
Around 90 firefighters tackled the blaze, where no one was hurt. Local police evacuated between 700 and 1,000 people – including schoolchildren from an elementary school.
The firm makes about 200 products, including some that are hazardous when ignited. Much of its business covers energy production, including chemicals used to stimulate oil and gas wells.
The Waxahatchie Fire Department said the company was making a large batch of a waste water chemical and a steam cloud came off of it and in the cloud was Hydrogen from the product. The hazardous materials commander, Ted Padgett said smoldering sulfur-based animal feed compounds left an ‘extremely foul odour’ once the fire was put out.
Environmental officials are investigating.





Saturday, January 15, 2011

Protect Your House With Professional Residential Fire Sprinklers



The major breakthroughs in regard to fire protection in the last few decades are fire sprinklers. They are not only popular to protect the business establishments from fire but also they are becoming popular among the home buyers and home builders alike. These residential fire sprinklers are considered as the effective way to safe guard your property as well as your lives. There are some added advantages due to which people are motivated to install this fire protection system in their house even if their house is already armed with smoke alarms. The reason behind is that sometimes the smoke alarms don’t alert the home owner about the spreading fire, but when it comes to fire sprinklers then it serves its function of alarming well. They are appreciated because of their effectiveness. And they are the perfect fire protection system that easily controls fire and also protects your lives.    

Studies demonstrate that if every house is armed with residential fire sprinklers then millions of live can be saved along with ample of property. Furthermore, this fire protection system is designed to prevent almost every fire related injuries and thus property damage will be reduced, considerably. Therefore, this fire protection system is not only beneficial for protecting lives but also to prevent property damage. 

Fire Sprinklers are designed to response quickly in comparison to other traditional smoke alarms. They are specially designed with improved trigger mechanism. Due to this technique they automatically get activated to have control over spreading fire before it can catch momentum. Moreover, they are not too expensive as well. The cost of this fire protection system is 1 to 1.50 US dollars per square foot but this rate is only applicable for newly constructed house. But it is expected that the price will go down very soon due to its popularity and increased demand. The already constructed house can also install this fire protection system. But the installation charges will be a bit higher because the house is already constructed.         

Residential fire sprinklers are very small and handy too in comparison to industrial version. You can install then in your house inconspicuously. Moreover, you can install by coordinating them aesthetically with the theme of your home décor. The interesting part is that it requires nominal installation work.

The most interesting benefit that you can avail after installing residential fire sprinklers is that you can get huge amount of discounts on your home insurance coverage. According to the coverage type the underwriters will offer you discounts. But normally they offer 5 to 15 percent of discounts on home insurance premium if the house is armed with this fire protection system. The homeowners whose house is armed with fire sprinklers on the other hand can avail these benefits. Indeed, this fire sprinklers for house offers an inconspicuous, low maintenance, and inexpensive option of fire protection. The top most advantage of this fire protection system is reliability and protecting your family and property from serious hazards of fire.